Wednesday, July 29, 2015

It’s always a joy to engage with the mind of Camille Paglia.
At times, her theories diverge from my
own. And yet, Paglia comes by her views honestly, and does not kowtow to
ideologues. Thus, while there are few points where I agree with today’s
aspiring Brown Shirts or Red Guards, I have no problem finding common ground
with Paglia.

For example, about Hillary Clinton. I have occasionally remarked
about this grotesque irony: this self-proclaimed champion of women’s rights
worked long and hard to enable her husband’s preying on women.

Naturally, the media is all abuzz about whatever happened
between the Trumps two and a half decades ago, but they have completely
forgotten that Juanita Broaddrick went on NBC television for an hour to explain
that Bill Clinton raped her. No one cared then and nearly no one cares now.

About Bill Clinton and feminism, Paglia says this:

The
horrible truth is that the feminist establishment in the U.S., led by Gloria
Steinem, did in fact apply a double standard to Bill Clinton’s behavior because
he was a Democrat. The Democratic president and administration supported
abortion rights, and therefore it didn’t matter what his personal behavior was.

And then there was Bill Clinton’s treatment of Monica
Lewinsky, fully supported by the feminist establishment:

And the
actual facts of the matter are that Bill Clinton was a serial abuser of
working-class women–he had exploited that power differential even in
Arkansas. And then in the case of Monica Lewinsky–I mean, the failure on
the part of Gloria Steinem and company to protect her was an absolute disgrace
in feminist history! What bigger power differential could there be than between
the president of the United States and this poor innocent girl? Not only an
intern but clearly a girl who had a kind of pleading, open look to her–somebody
who was looking for a father figure.

America is at once completely open and honest about
sexuality and on the other hand, utterly naïve about it. The nation embraces
the amateurish decadence portrayed in Fifty
Shades of Grey as risqué, but has not even noticed that Bill Clinton, Paglia
correctly points out, did not even treat Monica Lewinsky with the respect one
accords to a proper mistress. He used her and threw her away:

It was
frat house stuff! And Monica got nothing out of it. Bill Clinton
used her. Hillary was away or inattentive, and he used Monica in the
White House–and in the suite of the Oval Office, of all places. He couldn’t
have taken her on some fancy trip? She never got the perks of being a mistress;
she was there solely to service him. And her life was completely destroyed by
the publicity that followed. The Clinton’s are responsible for the destruction
of Monica Lewinsky! They probably hoped that she would just go on and have a
job, get married, have children, and disappear, but instead she’s like this
walking ghoul.

By Paglia’s analysis feminism has lost its bearings. It no
longer defends women. It has sacrificed women’s lives on the altar of its
ideology.

Paglia believes that the problem lies in our generalized ignorance,
especially of psychology. Here, dare I say, our views diverge.
Paglia is more Freudian than I so she suggests that bad behavior has infantile
antecedents. She wants to explain it as a function of bad upbringing. No one is
going to deny that childhood development exercises an influence on people. One
is going to question whether any insight into such development will have any
effect whatever on the behavior.

For now, we will allow her to present her view:

We’re
in a period right now where nobody asks any questions about psychology.
No one has any feeling for human motivation. No one talks about sexuality
in terms of emotional needs and symbolism and the legacy of childhood.
Sexuality has been politicized–“Don’t ask any questions!” “No
discussion!” “Gay is exactly equivalent to straight!” And thus in this period
of psychological blindness or inertness, our art has become dull. There’s
nothing interesting being written–in fiction or plays or movies. Everything is
boring because of our failure to ask psychological questions.

For my part I believe that the fault lies with ideological tyrannies that do not allow anyone to deviate from the party line.
In truth, we blind ourselves to reality and refuse to allow it to intrude on
our beliefs.

Trying to explain Clinton and Cosby, Paglia offers the kind of
psychological explanation that has often been used to rationalize
their behavior. You see, these men are not responsible for their actions; their
mothers made them do it.

She writes:

It has
something to do with their early sense of being smothered by female power–and
this pathetic, abusive and criminal behavior is the result of their sense of
inadequacy.

And she adds:

We are
formed by all kinds of strange or vague memories from childhood. That kind of
understanding is needed to see that Cosby was involved in a symbiotic,
push-pull thing with his wife, where he went out and did these awful things to
assert his own independence. But for that, he required the women to be inert.
He needed them to be dead! Cosby is actually a necrophiliac–a style that
was popular in the late Victorian period in the nineteenth-century.

I don’t know that we need any special psychological
explanations for this, but I do find it astute to note that Cosby’s rapes
resemble necrophilia. Whether or not this was caused by a smothering mother, I
am fully confident that if Cosby had acquired this insight it would have had no
effect on his behavior.

Paglia uses the same psychological explanation for Bill
Clinton:

And
it’s the same thing with Bill Clinton: to find the answer, you have to look at
his relationship to his flamboyant mother. He felt smothered by her in
some way. But let’s be clear–I’m not trying to blame the mother!
What I’m saying is that male sexuality is extremely complicated, and the
formation of male identity is very tentative and sensitive–but feminist
rhetoric doesn’t allow for it. This is why women are having so much trouble
dealing with men in the feminist era. They don’t understand men, and they
demonize men. They accord to men far more power than men actually have in sex.
Women control the sexual world in ways that most feminists simply don’t
understand.

Paglia makes an important point here. Beyond the fact that
she is blaming mothers, she is correct
to say that feminism has failed to understand sexual dynamics. It has refused to see that when it comes to romance women have home field advantage. Feminism sees men as
predators (unless they are named Bill Clinton) and women as victims. Thus, it
does not allow women to take charge of their romantic lives and to exercise a
form of power that they have always had.

But, feminism has reduced the importance and the relevance
of motherhood, thus disempowering women in another way. It has placed too much emphasis on not conceiving children.
It has suggested that motherhood is a conspiracy designed to keep women out of
the workplace and to prevent them from finding the fulfillment that they can
only gain by living as though they were men.

So feminism has reduced the cultural importance of
motherhood:

The
erasure of motherhood from feminist rhetoric has led us to this current
politicization of sex talk, which doesn’t allow women to recognize their
immense power vis-à-vis men. When motherhood was more at the center of culture,
you had mothers who understood the fragility of boys and the boy’s need for
nurturance and for confidence to overcome his weaknesses.

And this problem has had an interesting impact on relationships between men and women. Young women who have become convinced that
they are just as manly as their men want their men to be just as womanly as
they are. They do not understand that the sexes are different and they expect
to communicate with their husbands the same way they communicate with their
girlfriends.

In Paglia’s words:

The
heterosexual professional woman, emerging with her shiny Ivy League degree,
wants to communicate with her husband exactly the way she communicates with her
friends–as in “Sex and the City.” That show really caught the animated way that
women actually talk with each other. But that’s not a style that straight
men can do! Gay men can do it, sure–but not straight men! Guess
what–women are different than men! When will feminism wake up to this basic
reality? Women relate differently to each other than they do to men. And
straight men do not have the same communication skills or values as women–their
brains are different!

And also:

Wherever
I go to speak, whether it’s Brazil or Italy or Norway, I find that
upper-middle-class professional women are very unhappy. This is a global
problem! And it’s coming from the fact that women are expecting men to provide
them with the same kind of emotional and conversational support and intimacy
that they get from their women friends. And when they don’t get it,
they’re full of resentment and bitterness. It’s tragic!

Finally, Paglia has a few choice words for Emma Sulkowicz,
aka the mattress girl. You recall that Sulkowicz was so convinced that she had
been raped and that her rapist was getting away with it that she spent a
semester carrying a mattress around campus, up to and including carrying it to
the podium when she received her degree.

One must add here, because one has mentioned it before, that
Sulkowicz is the daughter of psychoanalysts, of people who presumably are fully
cognizant of the Freudian narrative that pretends to explain human behavior:

I call
it “mattress feminism.” Perpetually lugging around your bad memories–never
evolving or moving on! It’s like a parody of the worst aspects of that
kind of grievance-oriented feminism. I called my feminism “Amazon feminism” or
“street-smart feminism,” where you remain vigilant, learn how to defend
yourself, and take responsibility for the choices you make. If something
bad happens, you learn from it. You become stronger and move on. But
hauling a mattress around on campus? Columbia, one of the great Ivy League
schools with a tremendous history of scholarship, utterly disgraced itself in
how it handled that case. It enabled this protracted masochistic exercise where
a young woman trapped herself in her own bad memories and publicly labeled
herself as a victim, which will now be her identity forever.

Paglia’s points are well taken. As I have often mentioned, victims
of trauma should not advertise their victimhood. They should try to put the experience
behind them, to get beyond it, to overcome its toxic effects. By letting
herself be identified as the mattress girl, Sulkowicz has, as Paglia notes,
identified herself in public as the victim. It will now be her identity
forever.

Worse yet, as I noted on the blog, she made a pornographic
video of the event in question… one in which she played herself. Perhaps she wanted
to martyr herself for the cause du jour, but Paglia is more correct and compassionate
to worry about the after-effects of this effort at public self-redefinition.

24 comments:

Paglia: Wherever I go to speak, whether it’s Brazil or Italy or Norway, I find that upper-middle-class professional women are very unhappy. .. Women are blaming men for a genuine problem that I say is systemic. It has to do with the transition from the old, agrarian culture to this urban professional culture, where women don’t have that big support network that they had in the countryside. All four of my grandparents and my mother were born in Italy. In the small country towns they came from, the extended family was the rule, and the women were a force unto themselves. Women had a chatty group solidarity as they did chores all day and took care of children and the elderly. Men and women never had that much to do with each other over history! There was the world of men and the world of women.

This seems to be a fairly well-known narrative, although I don't know what to call it nor what to make of it. My mom's generation were unhappy as stay-at-home mothers isolated in the suburbs, and now feminism has enabled a generation of unhappy career-oriented women too busy for parenthood or extended feminine support circles??? It seems to so easy to paint a picture of unhappiness and not really be able to validate its truth or relevance.

Maybe we should just conclude many women are generally only happy when they are unhappy? At least what else would they talk about when they're bored? Men go fishing or something, and never have to talk about why they're depressed and unhappy about their wife being unhappy.

At the moment comparing Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby looks problematic. At least I'm not aware of Clinton drugging any women. And if Clinton wasn't a very grateful person in public to Monica, we can still consider Monica's true betrayal wasn't from Clinton but the woman she trusted, Linda Tripp.

And maybe that's Feminism's fault? Perhaps poor innocent Monica's plight could only be rightred by humiliating her in public to try to sink the political career of the man she thought she loved. Feminists might really be so dumb.

Or maybe it was the right thing to do, so Clinton would stop breaking the hearts of innocent young women who foolishly fall in love with him. Is that just like all the victims of Cosby are now finally coming forward talking about being drugged and raped, we've only skimmed the surface of Clinton's bad behavior, and someday we'll really know he was more than just a babe-magnet, but and actual bad bad man.

I admit my head spins by it all. Someday perhaps feminist women will stop aspiring to be unhappy acting like a man, and go back to being unhappy acting like women, and the world will be a better place. I think that's the moral of the story, but Paglia might have to give up her gig as college professor.

The next one is vintage Paglia. http://www.salon.com/2015/07/29/camille_paglia_takes_on_jon_stewart_trump_sanders_liberals_think_of_themselves_as_very_open_minded_but_that’s_simply_not_true/I may disagree with her, but she always speaks her mind and challenges mine. One cannot understand their own beliefs until they attempt to understand other's beliefs. Paglia may be an atheist, but has a deep abiding respect for religion and its place in history and the lives of people.Sadly to assume that women would be sad acting as women does women a disservice and suggests that being a woman is not a good thing to be. It further assumes that being a man is the standard. It is to me a form of soft bigotry. One will find that the vast majority of women, and men, who are happy are happy being themselves. Feminism does real damage to women by convincing them that enjoying being a woman is bad. I suspect that is why the number of women who avoid the feminist label are growing.

Oh, I mention Linda Tripp, and poof, she's in the news saving the day once again. Where would the world be without unhappy women?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3176621/Lies-cover-ups-corruption-Linda-Tripp-West-Wing-assistant-outed-Monica-Lewinsky-s-sexual-liaison-Bill-Clinton-talks-time-Hillary-tells-never-President.html----------Speaking today she revealed: 'I believe for all his faults as a flawed man, Bill Clinton is not as unscrupulous as his wife. He is complicit but he is not as deceitful as Hillary Clinton is. Don't get me wrong, they are both missing the integrity chip but while she is inherently dishonorable, his seems to be learned behavior.

'Hillary Clinton ruled the White House even as early as 1993 and every scandal that originated in the Clinton administration was the brainchild of Hilary.

'When I think of Hillary Clinton I think of a lingering taint of scandal and wrongdoing and, in my opinion, possible criminal activity.'

And behind it all was, according to Tripp, the pursuit of the Clintons' 'common goal' – power.

She explained: 'She has stood by him all these years because she needed him. In 1992 no female, least of all she, would have been elected to the highest office in the land.

'Their focus has always been power and the accumulation of that power. There were just so many things in the White House that made it abundantly clear to anyone in their radius that he was the elected official but she was the one with the actual power.'

And, according to Tripp: 'When a couple is as focused as they are on a goal there are many, many things that one overlooks to achieve that. Nothing is allowed to stand in the way. That means no circumstance, no person.'

The most obvious examples of this single-minded pursuit came in Hillary's treatment of the series of 'bimbo eruptions' that threatened to derail Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and continued to surface throughout his presidency.------------

"At the moment comparing Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby looks problematic."Of course you think so. Is it a "straw man argument"? Camille Paglia pulls no punches. She is is comparing them as sexual predators, which they clearly are. The difference is that Bill Clinton is a sexual predator who is married to the woman the Democrats are all in for in 2016, shielding him from criticism. Cosby is a sexual predator who dares to question black ideological orthodoxy, which of course is sacrilege... he's got a big target on his back.

"At least I'm not aware of Clinton drugging any women."Me, neither. And it's not germane to the topic here. Paglia is saying they're both sexual predators. Cosby drugged women and had sex with them in their compromised mental state, which is rape of a variety that Paglia associates with necrophilia. Bill Clinton has been accused by numerous women for unwanted sexual advances, and one woman -- Juanita Broaddrick -- alleges he violently raped her. A more traditional form than drugging, eh?

"And if Clinton wasn't a very grateful person in public to Monica..."You mean when he wagged his finger and said "THAT woman, Ms. Lewinsky" and blatantly lied to the country? Paglia was noting the lack of dignity afforded to Lewinsky because she wasn't a mistress in the proper European sense, where mistresses are afforded companionship, status and other benefits. Lewinsky was thrown aside labeled a "stalker" by the Clinton administration. Paglia's point is that the fellatio in the Oval Office and the cigar references show Lewinsky was used by Clinton in a grotesque abuse of power dynamics with a star-struck intern. What should we call that? A lack of gratitude?

"... we can still consider Monica's true betrayal wasn't from Clinton but the woman she trusted, Linda Tripp."Given that stellar logic, we can also accept that Lewinsky was "betrayed" by Bill Clinton when she was thrown to the curb like a piece of meat amidst a media frenzy. Hillary Clinton did everything possible to destroy Lewinsky so as to shore-up her husband's political future, calling her a "narcissistic loony toon". If Monica was a "stalker," as the Clinton White House later said, Tripp might've been been doing them a favor by capturing the evidence Clinton needed to show how insane Lewinsky was. The only hitch was that Lewinsky wasn't insane. Linda Tripp merely exposed the truth about Bill Clinton, and broke the law by recording her phone calls with Lewinsky. Tripp knew the media would never believe her without undeniable evidence. The Clinton attack machine couldn't challenge the facts, so they and their media accomplices concocted this tearjerker that Tripp "betrayed her friend." Poor, innocent little Monica! Lewinsky was 22 at the time, Tripp was 45... you really think they had forged deep, lasting bonds? Perhaps one could call Tripp's actions a form of "civil disobedience," where one must intentionally break the law in order to speak truth to (or about) power. Then the Clintons had Tripp fired from her Pentagon job.

What Paglia is saying is that (a) Clinton was, and is, a sexual predator who targets vulnerable women, (b) his wife leads attacks against these women ("bimbo eruptions") in order to protect him, and (c) this is a double-standard in light of Cosby's media crucifixion... no matter how well-deserved by either man, the treatment is starkly different. Bill Clinton had sexual acts performed on him by a White House intern, and he's treated like royalty, demonstrating two standards based on clear political bias.

"Oh, I mention Linda Tripp, and poof, she's in the news saving the day once again."Breaking news: The story ran yesterday. It had nothing to do with you. Nice try. You share the Clintons' penchant for grandiosity.

"Where would the world be without unhappy women?"What in Linda Tripp's comments is indicative of her personal unhappiness? The story you reference indicates the exact opposite.

Most importantly -- returning to your extracted comments here -- what did Linda Tripp say that is untrue?

"By Paglia’s analysis feminism has lost its bearings. It no longer defends women. It has sacrificed women’s lives on the altar of its ideology."

"For my part I believe that the fault lies with ideological tyrannies that do not allow anyone to deviate from the party line. In truth, we blind ourselves to reality and refuse to allow it to intrude on our beliefs." The group/organization/party is all, and any single part will be sacrificed for the good of the Party.

"Worse yet, as I noted on the blog, she made a pornographic video of the event in question… one in which she played herself. Perhaps she wanted to martyr herself for the cause du jour, but Paglia is more correct and compassionate to worry about the after-effects of this effort at public self-redefinition."

Billy Boy Clinton was/is/will always be sleaze, but I have no sympathy for Blewinsky. She wasn't forced into it. She went after him as much as he went after her. She was a happy groupie and was willing to snatch a man from his wife and kid. She is scum too.

"Trying to explain Clinton and Cosby, Paglia offers the kind of psychological explanation that has often been used to rationalize their behavior. You see, these men are not responsible for their actions; their mothers made them do it."

For most men, it isn't easy to get action, especially good action. So, if they find someone they like, they try to value and keep her. Thus, their 'boing' is under control.

But ambitious men tend to have bigger appetites, sexual and otherwise. And because you have to bend the rules to get to the top, they learn to be devious and duplicitous. And once they have the power, they realize lots of women want them, and they can get away with a lot of morally dubious behavior. Their 'boing' turns into jumbo jet Boeing.

And it was especially sweet for Billy Boy Clinton and Billy Boy Cosby. Clinton, as a Democrat, had the protection of feminists and the media. And Cosby, as the Nice Negro and 'America's Dad' was a POSITIVE image for blacks to emulate. He said things about black pathology that white folks were afraid to say. With media protection, they could get away with lots of stuff.

"The group/organization/party is all, and any single part will be sacrificed for the good of the Party."

And then sold off by Planned Parenthood.

I am disappointed to find out on today's Drudge Report that people are expressing more concern and outrage for someone shooting Cecil the lion than we do for the murderous, publicly-funded horror show that is Planned Parenthood.

"The human person has dignity before God, regardless of political persuasion. They're not "their babies" as in Liberal's babies."

That is if you believe in God. I don't. Unborn babies of Liberals are just future Liberals as far as I'm concerned. If Liberals want to kill them, it is not my business. And Liberal men and women want it that way. Who am I to say NO or judge them if they want to kill their own kids?

It would seem that "priss" seems to have a lot of suppressed rage. For Conservatives, many of whom believe in the primacy of the individual and that taking personal responsibility is a function of being an individual, it make sense to care about the individual no matter how one defines it. A woman has a right and a responsibility to take care of her body. This changes when, through their own actions, they choose to take steps that lead to pregnancy. We are no longer talking about something that just involves one individual. It is bad enough that there are so many ways to keep from getting pregnant that failure to be responsible leads to actions that most will come to rue. I understand that in cases of rape and incest that other actions should or can be taken for the woman had no responsibility for what happened to her. It is interesting to me that we use name like fetus, jap, chink, liberal, progressive, neocon et al in order to take away one's humanity so it is easier to justify killing them. Even here where we have a misdefined term such as liberal. Many of us were classical liberals in our youth and became libertarians, neocons because of academe's need to be seen as not extreme or whatever one believe as the mature.The problem comes when the inevitable happens and we find more ways to remove the status of human being to any and all we disagree. We quickly reach the point of doing the most heinous of actions because they are so easy to justify and the mob will always follow because having someone to scapegoat is funny for those who are insecure.Am I the only one who is getting tired of people, groups and governments who believe they have the right to determine what happiness is for both men and women? We are individuals who have a right to determine what makes us happy. If we succeed well bully for us. If not then it is are own responsibility. I find it disappointing that many women would allow others to control their lives. When a woman dies that feminist who convinced her to make a mess of her life is not going to be there to share in the tragedy that feminism visited upon them. It is what happens when we let the desire to belong to the group define who we are vice as the most important thing we have, our individuality.Sadly too many followers and not enough leaders.

"It is interesting to me that we use name like fetus, jap, chink, liberal, progressive, neocon et al in order to take away one's humanity so it is easier to justify killing them."

There is a difference between killing them and letting them kill themselves.

If Charles Manson aimed a gun at his head, would you stop him?

I'd say, "pull the trigger, dude."

Likewise, if Barney Frank's mother had wanted to abort Barney, I would have said 'go right ahead'.Personally, I don't like abortion. I find it monstrous. But there is a matter of 'who, whom'. I would condemn a decent American killing her unborn kid, but then a decent woman would not do that to her kid.

But if indecent Americans want to kill their kids, it means fewer idiot kids raised by demented parents. Would the world have missed out on anything if Emma Sulkowicz had been aborted?

"There is a difference between killing them and letting them kill themselves."Indeed there is. I am a stand for those human beings who do not have a choice.

"If Charles Manson aimed a gun at his head, would you stop him?"I am sad to admit that I probably would not stop him. But that is my failing, not his. I believe he is a child of God, and has something to show us. That said, I'm satisfied with what I've seen thus far, and would not intervene.

"If Liberals want to kill their unborn babies, it means fewer Liberals in the future."Your politicization of life and the fatalism you see in your own certainty about who people become is quite startling.

"If Barney Frank's mother had wanted to abort Barney ... Would the world have missed out on anything if Emma Sulkowicz had been aborted?"You want people to be dead rather than live because you disagree with them? Wow. How will we ever learn what we believe if we don't have people to s how us the way we want to live and do not want to live? You would kill someone because they are a political ideologue? You would condemn someone to death for carrying around a mattress? How will you ever know what you believe if you don't have examples of what another's belief leads? Would you rather live in a nation or society where everyone agrees with you? Is that the standard by which we will decide live or death... by whether 'priss rules' gives a thumbs-up or thumbs-down? Have you read or seen "Minority Report"?

Sounds like you have it all figured out. Since you don't believe in God, I can only assume you don't believe in evil, free will or redemption. Human beings must simply be mechanical creatures to you that are either functioning or malfunctioning. I'm not seeing much "suppressed" rage... it seems fully expressed. Where does all that anger get you?

"Am I the only one who is getting tired of people, groups and governments who believe they have the right to determine what happiness is for both men and women? We are individuals who have a right to determine what makes us happy. If we succeed well bully for us. If not then it is are own responsibility."

Nothing truer said. Thank you.

Our elites have become intoxicated with their belief in knowledge, while eschewing any supernatural understanding of life's mystery. They are so certain about their intellectual magnificence that they've lost connection with the value of life and their need for others. Those who are alive must be controlled, with predictable lives where happiness is externally required and pre-programmed. They have no trust in their fellow man. It strikes me as a very lonely existence -- thinking you are all-knowing and all-powerful and that others exist to serve you and your desires. It is a consequence of materialism and the hopelessness of postmodernism, where all life is this hallucination and one might as well do whatever they want, regardless of consequence to others. My success is because of my prowess, and my failure is because of bad people. Loneliness is the hallmark of our age... we've never been more connected, and never more alone.

By believing that it is OK for "supposed" liberals to kill their own children, no matter the terminology, we allow a form of degradation of possible and actual human life. Further we allow those very same people to indoctrinate our children.Since they have no true idea of what it is to love and parent a child they do not see the damage they do to others. It is a fact that many "supposed" liberal change their opinions on many issues when they have their own children. Granted the true ideological leftist never sees any life as valuable except their own. One of the reasons that we see in the disparity of how women vote once they have children bears out that it is much harder to kill something when one sees and have responsibility for a real tangible life of their own making in their own existence.Those who did not vote for someone other than Obama because of a political disagreement are just as responsible for electing Obama as those who did. I would expect that many a German felt that way during WWII especially as they were forced to walk through the "death camps." "My hands are clean and I did not personally kill anyone." We become what we accept. It does not matter who commits the deed if we accept their actions.Given that large percentages rebel agains't their parents ideology we also miss having a growing population who finds "supposed" liberal dogma wrong.